A Meme-Based Architecture for Modeling Creativity Shinji Ogawa Nagoya, Aichi, Japan perfectworld@nyc.odn.ne.jp Bipin Indurkhya and Aleksander Byrski AGH University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland {bipin, olekb}@agh.edu.pl Abstract This research is a collaborative work between a visual artist, a computer scientist, and a cognitive scientist, and focuses on the creative process involved in connecting two pictures by painting another picture in the middle. This technique was in- volved in four Infinite Landscape workshops conducted at Art Museums in Japan and Europe over the last five years. Based on the artist’s verbal recollection of the ideas that occurred to him as he drew each of the connecting pictures, we iden- tify the micro-processes underlying these ideas, and propose a meme-based, evolutionary-inspired architecture for model- ing them. Introduction Research in recent years has revealed that though creativity may involve an aha moment with a gestalt shift or a sud- den perceptual or conceptual reorganization, it is typically preceded and followed by several micro-processes that play an equally important role as the aha moment itself (Dun- bar 1997; Sawyer 2006). These micro-processes can occur within a cognitive agent itself, or in different agents within a group or society. Our goal in this research is to study and model these micro-processes. Infinite Landscape Workshops This research is a collaborative effort between a visual artist [henceforth the Artist], a computer scientist and a cognitive scientist. Over the last five years, the Artist conducted four workshops at art museums in Japan and in Europe with the common theme connecting different spaces. In each work- shop, there were 15-19 participants, all children (8-14 years) except in one workshop there were six adults. All the work- shops followed the following modus operandi. In the first step, the children were shown about 20 pho- tographs of scenery from around the world, and then they were asked to draw imaginary landscapes using the build- ing, people, animals etc. in these pictures as they liked. In the second step, the Artist brought the children’s imaginary landscapes to his studio, and then he drew one picture to be inserted between every two children’s pictures, so that all three pictures form a seamless scene. One such trio of pic- tures is shown in Fig. 1: scenes 9 and 10 were drawn by participants, and the Artist drew S9 to connect the two. Figure 1: First strip In the third and final step, all the pictures were connected in a ring without a beginning and an end, and the completed ring was suspended from the ceiling of the museum where the workshop was held. The ring was placed with the paint- ings on the inner side, so that the viewer is surrounded by the work while viewing it. Overview of the Project and Methodology Specifically, our goal in this project is to model the micro- processes involved in creating the connecting picture. Our methodology is as follows. In the first step, the Artist has recorded various ideas that occurred to him as he drew each of the connecting pictures. In the second step, we analyze these steps to identify and classify underlying processes. In the third step, we outline a model for implementing these processes. Finally, we would like to do experiments with the implemented system and evaluate the results. In the current paper, we report our observations from an- alyzing the data from the workshop conducted at the Me- guro Museum of Art, Tokyo (Japan) on 2 August 2007. The Meguro workshop was different from the other three work- shops in that the participants were given only pencil and pa- per; there was no color, so the focus was on forms, shapes and space. Also, this workshop included six adults among nineteen participants; the remaining 13 were children (8-14) years. Based on our observations, we identify various micro- processes and how they interacted with each other to create the macro-level connecting pictures. Finally, we propose a meme-based, multi-agent architecture for modeling the un- derlying cognitive process, and discuss future research di- rections. International Conference on Computational Creativity 2012 170